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The Blue Jays often live by the sword. And on Thursday, in a matinee in front of a full house, Steve Pearce crushed a 10th-inning grand slam into the second deck in left field give the Jays a walk-off win at the Rogers Centre for the second game in a row. This time, it was an 8-4 come-from-behind win over the Oakland A’s that featured four Jays home runs, including one by Kendrys Morales that tied the game in the ninth.

The two walk-off wins — Toronto hit two homers in the ninth Wednesday to beat Oakland — gave the Jays a four-game sweep over the A’s, who had entered the week tied with Toronto in the American League standings.

“Hopefully we can just keep the ball rolling,” Pearce said. “We’re getting down to the end of the season so we’ve got to step it up. It’s a great series to get it started.”

Morales, who hit the walk-off homer Wednesday, led off the ninth Thursday with a game-tying blast to dead centre field. It was his second homer of the game, his 20th of the season and the 19th multi-homer game of his career.

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But there was an ugly sidelight in the fifth inning that took away from the Jays’ stirring comeback. Nobody among the Rogers Centre sellout crowd of 47,484 paid their money to watch the umpires perform — they came to see effusive righthander Marcus Stroman and a fourth straight win — but home plate umpire Will Little and his inconsistent strike zone stole the show.

In the fifth, following a ball four call to A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell, home plate Little heard John Gibbons, who had been on him for a while, and tossed the Jays manager. It was his fourth ejection of the season and that should have been it. Gibbons sacrificed himself for the team.

But after the manager came out and had his nose-to-nose say, Little turned back towards the pitching mound, baiting Stroman by taking off his mask. When the pitcher reacted, Little waved his right arm like a frenzied Muskoka cottager swatting deerflies, ejecting both Stroman and catcher Russ Martin on consecutive flails. Stroman had to be restrained by Martin and acting manager DeMarlo Hale.

“It’s an emotional game and there were some balls and strikes that was questionable, but that’s part of the game,” Hale said. “It got to a point where something was said and it escalated. That’s the gist of it really.”

It was not just Stroman that was questioning some of the strike calls by Little. Oakland hitters were constantly looking over their shoulders on strikes, but it was Stroman, who was only able to manage 52 strikes in 100 pitches, and Gibbons who finally could not hold their emotions.

“Both sides probably had some issues today, but certainly they (Jays) took more exception,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “(Little is) a good guy, works hard, he’s a young umpire . . . it is what it is.”

Little ejected Melvin and second baseman Jed Lowrie from a game in late May for arguing balls and strikes.

The fifth-inning brouhaha seemed to spark the Jays, who were trailing 3-1 at the time. Morales led off the bottom of the fifth by crushing a home run into the Flight Deck on the first pitch he saw. In the sixth inning, the Jays tied it on a soft line drive to centre field by Smoak that scored Jose Bautista. Josh Donaldson had opened the Jays scoring in the first with a homer into the bullpen in left.

The Jays had a chance to take the lead in the seventh, but third-base coach Luis Rivera took a chance with two outs and waved Troy Tulowitzki on a single to right. He was out at the plate.

The A’s scored a run against Ryan Tepera in the eighth to take a 4-3 lead, with Marcus Semien delivering a single to left field that drove in Jaycob Brugman. Tepera had faced 25 batters over six appearances without a hit until Brugman delivered a one-out single in the eighth.

Roberto Osuna, who pitched a scoreless 10th, picked up the win.

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